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Prepared for Life

J.M. Harper, AG Rojas

Park Pictures

J.M. Harper is a director and documentarian living in Bed Stuy, Brooklyn with quite a lot of expired Fuji 125T and a cat named Miles Davis. Raised in the cornfields of Rockford, Illinois, he learned how to wield a camera by making visually driven, human documentaries in Berlin, Senegal and across the Americas. A polyglot and composer, Jason embraces the multi-hyphenate path of cinematography, editing and directing. Jeenyuhs, a documentary on Kanye West, is his fourth feature documentary as editor. As a director, he was honoured as part of the AdWeek Creative 100 and nominated for a Webby. In his spare time, he teaches 16mm/35mm cinematography at a cinema arts non-profit called Mono No Aware. His film work has been featured at Sundance Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, AdWeek, Vimeo Staff Picks, FADER and the Guggenheim Museum. J.M. Harper is a director and documentarian living in Bed Stuy, Brooklyn with quite a lot of expired Fuji 125T and a cat named Miles Davis. Raised in the cornfields of Rockford, Illinois, he learned how to wield a camera by making visually driven, human documentaries in Berlin, Senegal and across the Americas. A polyglot and composer, Jason embraces the multi-hyphenate path of cinematography, editing and directing. Jeenyuhs, a documentary on Kanye West, is his fourth feature documentary as editor. As a director, he was honoured as part of the AdWeek Creative 100 and nominated for a Webby. In his spare time, he teaches 16mm/35mm cinematography at a cinema arts non-profit called Mono No Aware. His film work has been featured at Sundance Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, AdWeek, Vimeo Staff Picks, FADER and the Guggenheim Museum. Born in 1987, AG Rojas travelled the world as the son of a Colombian writer and a Costa Rican painter. At the age of 8, his family moved to Los Angeles permanently. AG began directing music videos soon after dropping out of Art Center College of Design at 17. Among his first two videos were Earl Sweatshirt’s very first music video “EARL” and Gil Scott-Heron’s very last music video, “I’ll Take Care of You.” In 2012, he created and curated a documentary series entitled “Tribute” which was distributed by Dazed Digital and featured short films by 12 up and coming directors (including Christine Yuen, Abteen Bagheri, and Eric K. Yue). AG has directed music videos for Jack White, Spiritualized, Run The Jewels, Florence + The Machine, Kamasi Washington, Bon Iver and Emeli Sande as well as global advertising campaigns for Nike, Apple, Adidas, and more. He was nominated for Outstanding Directorial Achievement by the DGA for his commercial work in 2017. That same year, Kamasi Washington and AG presented their contribution to the Whitney Biennial: a 30 minute audio visual installation entitled “Harmony of Difference.” In 2019, AG premiered a new film installation entitled “Godchild,” commissioned by the Smithsonian Institute and opened at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati, Ohio. It centers around the massive cultural contributions by Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Miles Davis and John Coltrane. It is currently on view on the “Men of Change” Smithsonian website. AG’s primary focus is on honouring marginalised peoples through the intersection between community, architecture and image-making.